Aura Walden 15″ Digital Photo Frame.

The Aura Walden 15” digital picture frame is the best picture frame I have seen and used. It’s easy to set up and use, easy to invite family and friends to add their own photos, and easy to enjoy. It is, however, expensive and—at least at the moment—almost impossible to obtain.

I have tried digital photo frames before. Each time, I’m overwhelmed by the small and easily ignored screen and frustrated by the difficult and needlessly annoying task of placing photos in the frame. However, hope springs eternal and three weeks ago a revised version of Aura Walden showed up on our doorstep. Since then it has become an important part of our family life. I just didn’t know how important it was to have all those photos and memories on my phone come into our lives.

First, the tech details:

• Screen: 15″
• Resolution: 1600 x 1200, 133 pixels/inch
• Matte screen with anti-reflective coating
• Multimedia: Supports photos and videos
• Use: horizontal or vertical
• Touch controls for power, photo details, delete photos
• Application for adding photos
• Easy way for friends/family to add photos
• Price: $250-300 (but seems to be out of stock right now)

I have tried three or four digital photo frames in the past. In any case the photos didn’t look large enough to be really visible at room scale and the software experience in the app was horrible, resulting in frustrating and long setup times. For the Aura Walden, from unboxing to showing photos took probably 10 minutes, and a big part of that was fiddling with the included kickstand to get the frame to stand up in landscape mode.

To add photos, you download the app, match it with the number flashing on the screen, and then simply select photos from your phone’s photo library. The app asked for permission to share my home Wi-Fi with the monitor, which I granted, and asked if I wanted to send a text message to anyone to add more photos. I did, and pretty soon the pictures of my wife and son started appearing on the screen as well.

You can choose the time and duration for how long photos stay on the screen in the app. We chose five minutes as a happy medium, but you can zip it every 15 seconds if you want, or turn it off forever at 24 hours.

Depending on whether you’ve set your Aura to landscape or portrait orientation, you’ll see some photo cropping that doesn’t match its natural orientation. If that’s a problem, you could only upload photos that match your frame setup, or in theory—and my wife suggested this—you could buy two and make sure you only put landscapes in the horizontal Aura and portraits in the vertical.

The technology experience was great, but I wasn’t prepared for what it would be like to see our photos live in our space. We love to hike, and this past year my wife and I went to Zion National Park, taking hundreds of pictures of amazing canyons, mountains, valleys, streams. It’s admittedly very tiring, but seeing these and other amazing spaces right in our own home has been an incredible experience that grabs my attention almost every time I pass by, makes me pause and either relive the moment or just take the opportunity to I’m thankful .

The controls on the device are also practical, as not all the photos my son has added meet my wife’s strict standards. While he could delete them through the app, the controls on the device are more direct and useful.

I have wanted the ability to display some of our photos for years. While I’m not happy with the frames we tried – there’s one back in its box still in storage somewhere right now – I thought about getting a Samsung Frame TV as an option. For our space, however, this would also be a $2,000-$3,000 cost and would require some carpentry and/or drywall work to keep a string from hanging from the art.

This is something we can still do. But for now, we enjoy looking at our photos at home, reminiscing about some of the great experiences of the past.

Should you buy one?

We have already bought a second Aura for my 88 year old mum, which we will load up with photos for her. We’ll also share the invitation for other family members to add photos, and if they don’t want to download the Aura app, they can just send photos to a dedicated email address for the frame.

That said, it’s not cheap.

There are plenty of $99 or cheaper 10-inch frames on Amazon, and companies like Canupdog or Livingpai offer 15″ and 16″ frames for as little as $130. The NexFoto also has a 16.2″ screen for about $150, and has mostly good reviews on Amazon. I haven’t tried those brands, so your mileage may vary, but you might consider them if the Aura seems a little expensive for what you get.

Also, the 15-inch Walden can be hard to find: there seems to be limited supply right now, and it’s definitely not available in Canada at all.

That said, I would buy it. The Aura Walden I am testing and using is a review copy, which I have to return to the company. I will ask though if I can just buy it from them.